Gaming mice can be pretty useful to people who want to get things done, even if you're not really a gamer. Gaming mice often come equipped armed with an arsenal of customizable buttons. So instead of executing spellcraft or quickly calling up the use of a weapon for your favorite PC title, these mice can be programmed with a plethora of shortcuts, accelerating your productivity in a single press. All in all, the sweet spot is about 10 programmable buttons to allow you to GTD ("Getting Things Done").

While we use mostly use our Xbox 360 for gaming purposes, it hasn't stopped us from being fans of gaming mice. The main reason is that these type of specialized mice also allow you to program many different shortcuts, making your interaction with a computer that much faster. In comparison, we've found that the acceleration is similar to using text expansion versus not using any; now that's fast, especially once you start to know the shortcuts by touch.

Some mice will allow you to map apps as well. You can use them to map your most common apps. These could include:

Browser: Firefox or Google Chrome

Word Processor: MS Word

Image Edition: Adobe Photoshop

Media Playback: WM Player or iTunes

The shortcuts listed above include ones for both Windows and OS X users. We tend to use a mouse for our PC but not for our Mac. If you share this preference, then we recommend trying using the Better Touch Tool app in order to program your touchpad with some additional shortcuts.